Infinite Stupidity
Sitemap INFINITE STUPIDITY AND IGNORANCE - SO MANY THING DONE JUST WRONG * See also Gianormous_Infinite_BS * See also Bugs_Bunny_Cartoon_Columbia * see also Infinite_Gratuitous_Violence * see also PLAYER_COMMENTS_ABOUT_BIOSHOCK_INFINITE * see also Infinite BS * see also Columbia Construction * see also Columbia Asylum * see also Columbia's Doom * see also Industrial Revolution BS * see also Burial at Sea * See also Technology_In_Columbias_Era * See also Religion_In_BioShock * See also Merging * See also Time_Traveling_Issues and Quantum Hokem * See also Simply_Copy_the_Previous_Games_Elements_BUT_BADLY * See also Derp Transportation in Columbia * See also Columbia Weapon_Fun * See also Infinite_BS_Was_Not_Really_A_BioShock_Game * See also Columbia_Police_State ---- ---- IQ of a Dead Hamster : All it takes to tell the big difference between Classic Rapture and the Purple Unicorn/Pixie Dust Fantasy Infinite BS Columbia (and Infinitized BaSx Rapture)... Ken Levine just tried to reguritate into the previously successful BioShock games' mechanisms/gameplay/formula, and quite inadequately re-used it for something that didn't quite fit -- Thus botching what could have been a much better game. No Ken, it WASN'T something we "never saw before". Same thing again, just done badly. And WAY TOO MUCH HYPE making believe it was more than it was -- that you couldn't delivered on. ---- BS (Bullshit) is Easy - It Takes Little Skill or Effort : "Use of quantum spin Hall effect to dilate time, which then is inverted through thermatic venting, resulting in temporal resonance displacement (Time Travel)" There, in that above I just glued together some scientific buzzwords into some 'good-enuf' mumbo-jumbo that is actually MORE scientific than the Infinite BS quantumz scatology. I didn't even need to 'consult' with any "experts" to lazily pervert/falsify Science in creating backstory/plot-facilitators (Presto!! In That There I just explained 'Tears' sufficient for an Infinite BS game 'Hack Quality' - I then just do whatever I want for the game 'cuz' its all fantasy BS). ---- Complain, Complain, Complain ... There's an old Carpenters Adage : "Measure Twice, Cut Once", which applies also to producing games. As in : Work out your design FIRST and do all the planning corrections and create it proper BEFORE making the wrong/incorrect Assets you will be loath and be extremely wasteful throwing away later (or worse, leave them mismatching the game story). Get straight and logical your story details and coordinate their consistent use by the whole project. Don't keep changing things after development is well under way such that you cause release delays and resource crunches which cause you to HAVE to use alot of half-baked patched plots/storylines and repetitive filler scenes. Making sure the game you attempt will work with the Players' targeted 'hardware' needs to be done AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE, so you don't have to abandon large amounts of costly effort, which could have been put to MUCH better use. Too much brown-nosing by 'reviews' in magazines (who's objectivity is questionable) and lack/ignorance of Player complaints/criticism over quality lead to game companies who don't think they need to produce a better quality product, when the customers continue to pay for second-rate garbage like good little sheep. ---- Throw a Ball At The Misogyny (Racial-Mixing) Public Punishment "Raffle" ' : Levine & Co completely miss the point (par for them) in the historic Racist society in America, where Racism was largely covered up/euphemized away - it was the hypocrisy that condemned them the most. Decent people didn't go to a 'Faire' to see such things (and it is rather dim/ignorant/dishonest to present it this crude way, and THEN pretend this is what 'America' was like). Systematic Racism or the ugly (to the ruling culture) object's of the social judgement would not be presented as a celebration. Public punishment (effectively a 'stoning') would be a separate occasion done with solemnity. THIS Punishment was also done wrong as a spectacle, as everyone there would be given a 'ball' (rock) for the public stoning to reinforce that it was All of Society carrying out the punishment for the transgression. That of course was beyond the 'envelope' of controversy to present in a game (no matter how 'edgy' the writers called it). The Quantumz predestination crap with the #77 could still be done for the 'raffle' after the guilty pair of ''Miscegenists were dispatched. ---- 'Miscegenationhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miscegenation #77 BS ' : A Woman to throw a ball at someone (in some Racialist act) ?? An Unheard of and Startling idea to see a White Woman act so (in that time/society). A woman watching a man do it - pretty much the same (Please look at old pix of lynchings where you find theres hardly a woman to be seen). Sorry NO, evil Columbia isn't that much changed. So full of shit this Failtopia thing is for this game. This whole Dog and Pony Show which offers some kind of weak Racist stunt to make believe the game is all about Social Issues ??? Actually, this scene shows writers supreme ignorance about society of that era, as well as demonstrating the milk-toast cowardice of the same writers for NOT showing something realistic - Something which would disturb the sensibilities of game critics, investors and the companies' detractors. But no, nothing of the sort. WEAK. ---- ' "I Disbelieve !!!! A player declaration in Dungeons & Dragons when they think they are in the Middle of An "Illusion" - which can backfire because it requires ignoring everything that happens - which might NOT be an Illusion " ' : Booker blasts-off from Lighthouse (rainy scene), and goes straight up into Columbia (nice puffy white clouds ...) "I'm sorry, but as a trained Meteorologist, I cannot buy that situation." Hmmm. Well if that's the extent of your objections to this game's Fantasy presentation, then you might as well leave now. BUT Putting (just about any sized) bullets through opponent's ( who are supposed to be normal humans ) head, but not dropping/finishing them UNTIL firing enough bullets to cut them virtually IN HALF is NO PROBLEM ?? AGAIN *FANTASY* EASILY EXPLAINED BY BEING ALL A FEVER DREAM OF BOOKER'S (which his Auntie Em wakes him up from, and there is Dorothy DeWitt back in that farmhouse in Kansas, *OR* in a later book : Waking up after getting shock therapy in a State Mental Sanatorium ...) ((( The "Drunk" DeWitt urinating on a Power Line and "got a big Surprise" ??? ))) ---- 'An Awful Lot of Columbia Feels Like Some Weird Amusement Park. ' : * It is not like a place anyone would live. * Old time America also wasn't just the front 'Main' street --- Most of it wasn't. * Too much caricature, too little character. Built as a Player limiting linear game maze. * Decrepit structures/environs which LOOK to have been purposefully built decrepit. * Illogical expenses of effort and resources for : huge amounts of wasted space, being needlessly overbuilt structures, enormous excessive signs ... So much is there with little real reason/justification to exist in a realistic world. * Areas seemingly designed to have mass gun battle in (arena-esque) ---- '''An Expert Speaks : Ben Bova (SF author and Physics PhD) has said (of Science Fiction) that "Your technology needs to sound plausible and be consistent". Strike One and Strike Two ... And here's the pitch at the historical logic of Infinite BS ... and 'Strike Three !!' and YER OUT !!!!!! SO KENNY, do you have Horrendous Exaggerations/Distortions used to illustrate Historical evils in your game setting ?? (Done to allegedly 'make a socially relevant point' ...)??? NO, SORRY, That is basically just dishonest Propaganda (When it is so slipshod/simpleton-like that it barely equates/relates to anything REAL). CREATING LIES is no real achievement, and is anathema to Players who expects a shred of honesty and ethics and proper storytelling. ---- Where Do All The People In Columbia Live ? ' : Its kind of like Mainstreet in Disneyland. Lotsa fancy frontage, but (in Disneyland's case) the people who work there go home when the park closes. "World Building" ? No, its more just cheap stage prop building. Merely Cardboard Cutout creation. 'Pretty' - in a Coney Island phoniness way ... The game says that People supposedly live in it ? Riiiiight .... Hardly looks like they could in so many ways -- even with all the vague floaty chunks off in the distance. People don't live in Monuments. A few huge-ified rich people's homes, and the "Shantytown" squalor, but where do the 'decent' White People all reside (those few distant multi-storied buildings)? Real Cities aren't built in this Columbia-type caricature ''wedding cake higgledy-piggledy arrangement. It would take LOTS of taller (typically 5 story - old fireman-ladder-height-limit tall ...) buildings. Block after block after block of them to pack sufficient people into this lopsided Game World environment to even justify it being called a 'town'. (Even small 'towns' have blocks and blocks of Single Story houses to justify that title.) At least in Rapture we saw LOTS of big buildings in the distances and large apartment buildings. ---- '''Balloonloads of Crap : If they (Comstock et al) could look into the future (which the writers made a huge deal about in the story), then they would see airplanes whose shape made alot more sense than fake 'Zeppelins', having non-operating/too-small balloon gasbag features AND wings (all things which actually made the aircraft highly inefficient, slow and hard to dock/maneuver). You have this Quantum floaty-shit, so WHY NOT USE IT PROPERLY ? (Still plenty of decades of RETRO-look available doing that). Since they had to reconstruct that one 'First Lady' -- now MINUS the Hydrogen (a feeble story of the previous one that went up in flames - it would have been huge and unwieldy and terribly expensive as only Governments could afford to build large airships). Why did they even build it with Hydrogen IN THE FIRST place (see in future - yada yada...) ??? (So I guess no Prophesying of the Hindenburg disaster then, or all the OTHER MANY airship disasters.) FLOATY SHIT EXIST ALREADY (the whole fricken city floats from the start ...) You cannot make local supply deliveries with Zeppelins in Columbia. The Barge thingees (which should have been made REAL-early to assist the construction) - YOU COULD JUST MAKE A BIG ONE OF THOSE, NO?. Derp-type-logic apparently was at work there. Look not-too-far into the future and they have whole selections of different airplane designs (which they MIGHT be willing to try AFTER that Lady Kaboom Disaster happened (( SERIOUSLY they DIDN'T hunt down the Vox and exterminate them after that (and that early?)??? A REALLY Lame-Assed police state ... WHAT the hell are they paying that army of para-militaries for if they can't destroy miscreants in a city you can't ESCAPE from and really can't HIDE in for long ??????????? Pathetic. )) Why stick to this weirdness when they are shown developing all kinds of other advanced things ?? Zeppelins WEREN'T common in those years yet anyway, so as to be retained because "people were used to them" ... "Zeppelin_on_the_Brain" Hmmm, I bet they already had a bunch of artwork made up from the start (early when that initial trailer showed that 'Zeppelin' scene) and didn't want to redo it - trying to make it all iconic for marketing WHEN THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MAKING A BETTER GAME. Ass backwards thinking which certainly had its inevitable result. With Crap like this, the Players would WANT to SEE the whole pack of cultist lame-ohs be destroyed with the entire dimwitted defective city crashing and burning -- *THAT* would have been a great scene. Booker pushing the inevitable requisite 'Self-Destruct control', etc ... Wouldn't have to interfere with all that Comstock Drowning Scene claptrap either ((though Booker exploding on contact with his other self WOULD have been the obvious cliche)). ---- Merging and Reconciling Too Much (Rewrite and Rewrite and Rewrite) : It is kindof hard to reconcile the Infinite BS Battleship Bay 'Beach scene' and the Faire's wantonness and the alcohol-soaked parts of 'White' Columbia (even the capitalism-mammon caricature bits) with that overwhelmingly-emphasized narrow religious intolerance/strictness element of Columbia (( '' They are the ones who gave us Prohibition, after all '' )). Trying to intermix religious fervor with a profane amusement park really was off-putting in its contrariness. The first was the earlier developed assets from that original recreated early-1900s 'America' theme (which they likely were STUCK WITH when they rewrote the game) Later, Columbia's setting was modified into a (idolatrous Faux-Religion) Cultist establishment. Was it Unintentionally Schizophrenic (?) -- and just Trying to glue that awful mess together with that Faux-Science Fantasy was head shakingly comical and sad, and a degeneration of everything 'BioShock'. Alexis de Tocqueville (in 1830s) commented that when he visited a small American town of finding dozens of different churches (and THAT is the TRUE America, Kennyboi). YOUR Columbia is (FAR OUT) atypical : More than just in the size of its one tyrannical religion, but also of it being a strangely-defined cultish absurdity, which is quite rare and marginalized in the REAL America. Any Claims The endless interviews made by the writers/designers and Levine himself that THIS place somehow represents "America" in any sense is completely Moronic. ---- "The Laws of Physics are a Bitch" - Isaac Newton ' "The "Ship Of Fools" isn't Columbia, it IS the game studio, and "Voyage of the Damned" was about any player unfortunate enough to buy Infinite BS." - Augustus Sinclair (Who 'Tells it as it is') ' --- --- --- --- --- Voodoo-Science - Science Based On Belief Rather Than Proof : The stuff seen in the Infinite BS game is set in a place where the other 'beliefs' are extreme, so (including the writers own biases against Historic America) the writers probably just assumed creating a bunch of fakery with History/Religion/Economy/Science its also just fine to do. Its "only a game after all" - EXCEPT all their much touted social relevancy is lost when the rest of the environment is illogical fakery. THIS IS THE BASIS FOR SO MUCH STUPIDITY in Infinite BS. ---- ---- --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . Infinitely BS - Ignoring "Infinite" ''' : With this multi-universe thing, there would be an '''Infinite number of Luteces (and the Infinite number of time machines to send them on their '3 hour tour' ) and also an Infinite number of Elizabeths. Since every quantum particle in the Universe (not quite an Infinite number of them) can flip one way or the other (or is it they can flip to a Infinite number of states??), every one that flips spawns a new multiverse Universe (I think I'm upto Infinite cubed so far). It is possible they can do this and continue flipping Infinitely fast too (but I will ignore that for now). Now with the possibility of transferring between these Infinite cubed Multi-verses and interfering with them in Infinite ways, we achieve Infinite Quadrupled. How does Elizabeth pick and choose (and according to Heisenberg and Schrodinger - Elizabeth entering a Universe instantly changes its course - or rather spawns another Infinite 'realities' (Heh, everytime she farts, Infinite new Universes spring into being ...). So Elizabeth, you can attempt to fix as many as you like, but there are Infinitely more messed up ones you will never get to (assuming your fixes EVER actually FIX anything, and doesn't just create an Infinite number of MORE messed up ones). Somewhere amongst all those Infinite Infinite possibilities there MUST be at least one Universe that is not so ludicrous. BTW, Remember that Elizabeth 'fixed' that Rapture Universe (in the BaS DLC) by helping (freeing) Atlas to murder thousands, and largely destroy Rapture (more thousands). Elizabeth could not even be sure that she saved 'Sally' (so this Quantum Pinkey Power allegedly gives her 20-20 prophecy abilities ? Sorry, NO. Yeah, this magic stuff is such a lame contrived Crutch for any game writer - The game writers should be embarrassed for what they to poorly created). --- --- --- Not Particularly Great Storytelling ... : A really GREAT storyteller gets all their facts/logic straight for the settings of their RIPPING GREAT stories. Those who don't bother to even try are just mediocre HACKS. Great Art deals with subtleties which can be ruined by jarring discordances and obviously logic-straining events. If you are presenting a Game World of such detail, it really doesn't take that much (more) effort to do it right. SO then WHY NOT DO it Right ?? - As Infinite BS is not hardly Sci-Fi, I make much larger allowances for some illogic -- It is really just a computer Pop-a-Mole Blast-Fest game. Thus, a coherent 'story' wasn't really any priority, and realism was not of much criticality either. I do seriously criticize WHEN supposedly important/historical Social Issues are made a game element, but then are simultaneously presented as if they were in the magical Land of Oz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz . --- --- --- Columbia's Ruling Class are Segregationist's ''' : They reject outsiders - those who are different than themselves -- and see them as a threat, diluting and destroying THEIR own culture. "Holiness is Race Cleanliness" ... A Problem : Are we supposed to ignore that weird Cultist Crap right out in front of us ? THAT wormy apple really does NOT fit too well IF this is allegedly/supposed-to-be some "American" subgroup, as the writers mentioned in their numerous 'historyism-like' declarations ??? OK, so '''WHY IN THE THE NAME OF THE HOLY PROPHET did they allow all the annoying sub-human 'others' to continue to exist in 'Holy' Columbia ? Why keep that obviously problematic contamination ?among themselves ? Should not Fink's manufactured Wonders have eliminated the necessity for having such menial lower-orders ? Saying they 'Just-keep-them-around to Lord It Over' as tolerated inferior subjects, that flies in the face of the Segregationist's goal of 'purity'. A Flying town is too small (being a tiny Failtopian ecosystem) -- the whole "purity" construct fails when the 'inferiors' are right there always in the inhabitant's face. Unless the majority never 'bought into' that cult ... but then the question is : Why (conveniently) did THEY (some more moderate majority) THEN never got rid of that overstrict '15-ton-weigh' imposed by Columbia's anti-American-freedom theocratic societal system ?? Who needs Theocratic Tyranny when you've got a good ole Southron circa 1900 "We are right and 'in charge' because we say so (and we hang or shoot anyone who says otherwise)" precedence already available ???? (( '' That Antebellum flavor seems to have been the original setting concept BEFORE Quantum Weirdness fermented, and then that creepy, rather-atypically-American, religious cultism was rewritten into the games storyline '' )). There are FAR too many disordered overlapping and contradictory elements to have the given game story setting make sense (( '' And I have hardly gotten into that crazy faux-science crap yet '' )). They just dump it on you, and then start handing you guns and whisper 'Evvvvvil peoples be here', and start sending them at you (and you start your Mass-Murder-Shootathon™). --- --- --- A Thought : About What You can Do with $US 200 Million Dollars -- The Amount Infinite BS is thought to have cost to Produce(HALF) and Market(Other HALF) ' : For the same price you could Create an amazing Movie like 'The Hobbit', instead of a mediocre game like Infinite BS ??? (Yes, there were 3 movies costing 200+M each, but I did say Movie - and EACH ONE did about $ 1 BILLION gross sales vs Infinite BS doing so poorly). Please Lets Compare what an expert visionaryPeter Jackson can do with such an amount of money, versus ... I don't recall too much mention of whether Infinite BS even managed to 'break even' profit-wise (perhaps after 10 more years of selling at $5 on STEAM ?? ). --- --- --- '''ONE TRUTH THOUGH - THESE ARE "GAME MAKERS" NOT "STORYTELLERS" ' These writers are creating a '''Shooter Game, not a Mark Twain Novel. Expectations from such limitations, even with their own endless promotional (and self-serving) Hype, needs to be taken into consideration. Consider that BioShock got such accolades when their game merely had a 'Scooby-Doo' level plot and a coercive story. To have that stand head and shoulder above the vast majority of games says MORE about the rest of the game industry's product. At least BioShock left alot vague, so that they didn't mess up like in Infinite BS by being too explainy of all their fakery. --- --- --- Comstock is God (Sorry Ken, NOT An American Anything There) ' : Columbia sure seemed to be replicating 'Sodom on the Surface' for it to supposedly claim be ''the New Ark or Eden in the Clouds. Mammon still seems to be King/God. The Prophet is a Charlatan. Idols abound. Maybe this is how the game writers (YOU Levine) see American Religion ? The only real (unintended) "Point Being Made" was that the writers of this game were pretty '''Clueless (They gushingly went on, interview after interview, at how clever they were at making it 'relevant' to the Real World. Delusion or Bullshit ?) Profound Thought (?) : Columbia was run like Ken Levine ran Irrational Games ????? (Naaaaaah) --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . . But WHY WOULD IMPURE UNTERMENSCHEN IMMIGRANTS AND SUCH LOWER BEINGS *THEN* BE ALLOWED TO CONTAMINIATE THE HOLY FLOATING EDEN ???? Out of Sight serfs/slaves might've made sense so that the 'Elect' didn't have to even see them. There was that early 'class warfare' (evil capitalist america) theme. It was still in the game, but glombed together with half a dozen other 'evils' themes -- churned til NONE of them make alot sense any more. Its NOT Clever, just a half-assed mess. --- --- --- Clueless Game Writers Take on Technology And How It Happens : Fink hadn't a clue (shown magically building unknown things from just seeing them through Tears) and even Edison knew exactly what needed to be done to make the Lightbulb work AND it still it took him nearly a year. Is this game an example of modern ignorance/stupidity, where most people haven't a clue how things work, but assume they do and supposedly how easy it all must be ? Suchong (in BaS) likewise was portrayed as a universal genius/scientist/engineer accomplishing pure miracles. If the writer's ideas of reality are such, then why should the Player care/empathize about any character's motives/intentions/sanity (it'll be just as magic/unreality/fantasy/ludicrous) - which thus makes it likely most Players said "Whatever..." or "Oh yeah that's nice..." for the fourth time to the weirdness, and then for the rest of the game just said ' "SKIP the BS and JUST bring me more things to shoot already" ', and ' "Is that all ? I wan't more neat ways to execute these enemies, and blow them apart" '. Provide Some Consistency with REALITY please. - You can Drive a Automated Stallion straight to Water, but can't Stop it from Falling in ''': Automated Stallion - a real horse has intelligence which helps to avoid daily disasters under real conditions. Sorry, no Clockwork Brain is worth even a rat turd - So every bit of such a primitive Animamatron has to be controlled by the operator. And sorry, whats needed just wasn't to be seen there in this thing (Even with harness and reins, a real horse/mule/oxen still does '''ALOT of instinctual control of its own maneuvering, reflexively and intelligently). Steps - "It don't do Steps" - I want my real horses back. (( ' "Game designers only design what they THINK Things Are" - Sid Meier ' )) --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One of the stupid things in Infinite BS was scenes like this : While Booker 20 feet away is obviously approaching in plain sight openly/visibly brandishing a gun (something other civilians don't much do), these NPC Police are unrealistically and absurdly nonreactive, considering their supposed role and the warnings about evil intruders in the city. The designers wanted to present their little Tableau of 'Columbia' in its normalcy, but did it too much in this moronic and lazy way. They wanted the player near enough to have a good closeup look at the scene. Unfortunately having the 'people' (something that should be the more important element) react at a distance would have the result of it all dissolving much too soon into violence, which would ruin the effect they wanted. A superior game might've had Booker AND Elizabeth keep assuming disguises (automatically grabbing and wearing lots of odd/amusing/strange stuff and using props), or cause diversions, to get close to their opponents before the mayhem began. The player THEN would be alot more interested in looking over each scene, rather then a just a glance before charging in, guns blazing. We coulda also had ALOT more different reactions from the ambient citizens on the Player's approach (versus run away and disappear, or just cringe in place, when violence started). Add a bit more varying reaction from the OPPONENT NPCs. Columbia is awash in guns, so why not have more ordinary people pull out guns/etc and defend their city from the 'evil doers' ? Clues in the scene might've suggested where the Player should go to get closest (multiple paths causing variations). The player's character then also might NOT have to be such an ABSURD 'Bullet Sponge' to handle the (Players) constantly walking directly into intense weapon fire. SUCH A huge opportunity was lost for this game. ---- ---- . . . . . . . . . . . . . Absurd crap like this to justify the 'Class Warfare' the game presents in its attempt to portray social ills of 'real' America 1900, NO MATTER how illogical it is for the setting of 'Columbia'. 'Too much shit pushed together' was how one commentator (NOT from one of the ass-licking industry magazine) put it. ---- Laughable Economy - Simpleton Props : Maybe if they had the imagination and writing-competency to explain with something like : Columbia EXPORTED its manufactured goods, as it flew around the World (like selling guns/ammunition to dictators in banana republics) to get money and supplies to keep the city operating (and maybe Columbia itself did alot of robbing various backward parts of the World) --- THEN it might have made alot more sense to explain the economics vacuum. More than one commentary about the game also said : How thrown-together the whole game was (in story and content), with a general lack of coherency/consistency, and : "Trying to be too clever", with too many ideas stuffed into it making it one big mess. ---- ---- The Skyline system is moronic, and could only be created by a 'game designer', who shouldn't be allowed to design anything real, for the good of Public Safety. Columbia's whole transportation system looks designed by an imbecile or someone severely mentally-damaged by drugs. Good game feature potential were abandoned, story presentation and concept appear chopped up like coleslaw cabbage, all leaving just a mediocre shooter with a confusing harebrained Fantasy plot. Awarded a "Failz Minus" (Wins Five Hairballs from FailCat) ---- ---- NO FURTHER COMMENT IS NECESSARY ---- ---- Total misunderstanding of how balloons and REAL floaty thing in general actually work (We Might as well have had BRICK ZEPPELINS). ---- ---- Various Faux-Scientific Stuff : Inconsistency in their fake 'physics' ... Flip side of the same coin ? Actually with quantum events, Robert Lutece was far more likely to be a successful Circus Clown than another Quantum physicist (with the 'change event' going back 9 months before his birth to result in a Y chromosome - that's a whole lot of difference between universes). What isn't mentioned : is how many 'Roberts' and 'Robertos' and 'Robby The Mimes' Rosalind had to look through to find the one anything like herself. ---- ---- Hanging by only 4 or 3 fingers - CLUELESS DEVs ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- --- --- --- Columbia Signage (Signs) Is Excessive BS ? Kalumbia Be Dah Trash ''' : '''Inappropriate - a BIG sign must mean a BIG Business ... right ?? Complicated/Outsized signs for what can only be small businesses (in Columbia which is really a small town), likewise is an absurdity. For all Columbia's grandiosity, seen in the game, it is mostly empty air. Bad Placement - Another issue with Hugified Signs with buildings near each other - big signs at sufficient height can't be seen much when blocked by adjacent buildings - negating their purpose. They also give people looking up from the ground at a sharp angle a neck ache, or worse - the sign simply gets ignored). The majority of real world signs are normally to be found closer to the ground, to fall into the normal vision of someone on the street (and smaller also means cheaper to have made - unless bad Fantasy-Economics are in play). Real People, who have signs made, are NOT STUPID. In Columbia, many of the signs LOOK like they were designed by people with a view floating in the air ("artist" who doesn't understand Viewpoint Contexts). It is unlikely someone zipping by on those Skyway paths can look about themselves much, while they are hanging on for their lives (especially as the 'tracks' strangely dip and twist so-much, throwing them about, like a Rollercoaster). People who would see the signs generally will be ON THE GROUND. Too Complicated - If you look at old city photographs you will see that MOST large signs of the era are no more complex than being PAINTED on the flat side of a building (usually in white on a dark solid background for maximum visibility). More complicated signs are usually small because of their significant expense (and placed low, to be readable, seen close). Signs of the 'blade' type stick out at a 45 degrees at a corner so as to be visible down 2 streets. Overdone - Big signs are a cheap game method of creating an affect of "being impressive" (particularly to those who haven't a clue what real world signs at that time should be). This helps Cover up the lack of detail. Unfortunately a huge sign isn't that interesting and doesn't warrant a second look. Having large/HUGE LIT signs could bankrupt a small business (even today). Lack of Detail - On far away 'Prop' buildings, any signs which were much smaller would be unreadable (the idea that there were such signs visible wasn't enough. Representing Visual Perspective with consistency seems a lost concept (again all you have to do is look at real pictures). To be realistic, you would also have to have MORE signs (one big sign is alot less effort for a game developer to make than a realistic cluster of small/normal sized signs). All those cloud effects only partially obscured details at distance, and signs (which are designed for maximum visibility and have a distinctive shape ) are obscured the least, and so cannot really be omitted without the scene looking WRONG. All in all, the presentation of Signage in Infinite BS was overdone crap. --- --- --- Tear Madness ? BioShock Infinite (its all scientific you know ...) takes a turn for the insane for awhile. Example- time-ghost-zombies resurrected by a Banshee time-ghost of Lady Comstock, then you go onto a bridge later and you end up in what looks like an Insane Asylum where Benjamin Franklin's rush at you with crowbars, when a guy wearing giant foghorn ears agitates them by yelling. We coulda had MOST of Columbia be this from the start (to be more Politically Correct for the shooting mass-slaughterin' goodness). But that would have eliminated the 'normalcy' you get to see of Kenny&Co's '1900 ebil-america' Columbia, and it would definitely spoil the milque-toast social evil portrayals they splattered around, when they tried to make the game 'Socially Relevant' to Players, who to be honest, really didn't give a rodents rectum about. --- --- --- Oooh, Primo Colors, The Pretty Colors !!! ... ''' : ''Now Hand ME My Shiney Rotating Blade Thing !!! '' ' Those Lutece 'Particles' are really '''Pills' of Hallucinogenic compounds (which Comstock used -- some combination of native american mushroom chemicals), WHICH makes all of Columbia "Fly", even though nobody ever got off the ground. Perfect explanation - in the MMORPG Rapture story Columbia was just such a wacky 'commune' of cultists 'flyin' in their drugged-out existence. It, of course, eventually 'crashed', resulting in a pack of homicidal murderous psychopaths, which were eventually "put down" like the Rabid Dogs they had become. Perhaps this was all just a cautionary tale broadcast on Rapture TV (Sander Cohen Playhouse) after the side effects of ADAM Abuse became to be known in Rapture. (Elizabeth C. and Booker D. just being characters in a "Reefer Madness" tale.) --- --- --- Sorry In Columbia There Would Be NO Women Police Officers/Constables (even the Nazis did not have Women soldiers) : For a place allegedly claiming to be based on 1900 America (and a rather reactionary element as well), Infinite BS contained alot of gratingly stupid/unlikely/incoherent things -- FAR more Fantasy than anything Bio Shock should be. --- --- --- ' "The Philistine's March" (John Philip Souza wrote it in Response to Comstock's Columbia, and its Destruction) ' : Of course, having Time Travel access thru 'Tears' is a great story crutch, AND lets YOU get to hear later-era songs/music (of which there are many in the game). This allows trying to be 'Cleverly Anachronistic' (and skipping the tough part of imaginatively creating something original for the period). You can then 'sell it' to the typical Players -- who really DON'T care all that much (The "Oh That's Nice ... But WHERE'S the next thing I get to Shoot and explode its head ???????" demographic.) SHOULDN'T Fink's brother Albert have had to be 'Trolling' (as in fishing) through Tears for a VERY long time (day and night, for years) to find so many Songs ? Its like he just opened every Tear up and there one was , No ? And then he had to be VERY busy writing down the musical scores and lyrics (must've RECORDED them really really well -- maybe a Vox-O-Phone on the end of a long stick ??? -- to allow tediously transcribing them accurately at a later time). Skip all the musician training/performing or music sheet printing -- that's trivial by comparison (Consider just the idea that the slang/new-words of a later era would be unintelligible to the Columbites -- so Albert likely had to modify alot of songs HIMSELF to make them palatable - in particular to satisfy a stuffy bunch of fanatical religious cultists who were just itching to 'Burn' someone 'At the stake'). It is SO simply amazing that he could be looking (through Tears) so many times, and wind up constantly at the right PLACE and at the right TIME to record each of these many musical pieces (and he managed to get WHOLE songs - its kinda hard to market and sell PART of a song, or worse -- ones where YOU 'patch' the missing bits yourself, badly). (( '' He also probably have been aged even more than Comstock by his 'Tear' Exposure. '' )) See, that's the problem with having this 'Time Travel' element - IT introduces endless complications, which can be problematic in a serious game -- forming an increasing raft of Gaffs and Botches, when the writers employ it slap-dash in their story. "Oh, it all just gets taken care of !!!" is easy until the reply comes : "How ? Without turning the whole universe topsy-turvey into some implausible/illogical freakish place to accommodate what YOU say happens in the game -- WHICH IS CLAIMED TO BE A LARGELY NORMAL/RECOGNIZABLE PEOPLE/SOCIETY ?? SO MUCH FOR YOUR "HISTORICAL" RELEVANCY THERE, PAL ..." ''' (( '' Note - "Slap-Dash" is slang for inept/half-assed, which also BTW describes what the Infinite BS game was. '' )) --- --- --- '''Columbia - The Illogical Pretty Caricature : All those lights in Columbia - light bulbs cost money, so does the electric power for them (someone has to make both -- and that was EXPENSIVE high-tech in the 1890s and decades after that). It also consumed alot of fuel. But Magic Unicorn Tear Powered Stuff made things like that no problem ( ?? Then why didn't they light the building interiors the same way - where it would have made a much bigger improvement ???). It is because the writers just didn't get logical consistent details like that. (The outside looked like a circus, so why not the inside ? Or at least nice and bright ...) They just didn't realize that the tech changes (the effects of which the game was SUPPOSED to be about) should have significantly affected Columbia's society. and driven the story (like the previous game's "Bio Shock was about powerful genetic tech effects upon society). The Racist Cult Police State society was there with or without magic Floatyshit™ and those minor mechanical toys. We could have had : Stealing tech from the Future, Creative cyborg-ish enslavement, Creepy tech worship ... But no, it was just weak social justice warrior crap, ignorance of historic religion, magic faux-science story crutches, a cardboard cutout capitalistic economy to force class warfare. THAT was what they ladled out of their 'Witches Caldron of Too Many Half-Arsed Themes '. --- --- --- Infinite BS Game's Faux Unrealistic US Government : When the US Government is paying for something, THEY want to see every detail about it. Paperwork, costs,material everything to the smallest detail. First, the usual schmoozing/talk, political maneuvering and dealmaking beforehand needs to be done upon the prospectus. This usually takes months if not years. Then the working demonstrations, opening of contracts, model/design review, and ton upon ton of blueprints ... BEFORE allocations of any REAL money. It is ANOTHER kind of Fantasy to have ridiculous Wave of the hand Instantness in something pretending to be REAL America (and related to the Real World) AND dealing with REAL American government interactions. 3 months ?? Try 3 years (in the Real World things go wrong --- so add another year on there ... minimum) --- --- --- My Impression Of "Columbia" City Terrain/Levels : The game's Columbia architecture reminds me of Hallmark figurine buildings you see in gift catalogs -- a similar misproportion/coarseness/lack of detail. Add to that : the bizarre/impractical/illogical glombing of it all together. It is that semi-gingerbread house strangeness ... Hardly what you expect from something supposedly to be a nitty gritty city - where you FEEL the time and place (it has more like a grade-school play's stage crudity). Sure the swept clean, serf-polished public places (an army of cleaners would be required) should be shown, but there needed to be a shocking 'behind the facade' view to be found also - and not that 'exhibition grade' Shantytown weirdness, which simply looks purpose built (the BS1/BS2 designers were MUCH better at showing neglected places fallen into disrepair). --- --- --- You'd think the Skyline would make for a useful 'Transit' that people would use to get about disjoint Columbia ?? Oops, gets in the way of having all those other eclectic transport methods (which have more opportunity for Player-shooting firefights I suppose). ---- ---- QuantumzWroughtIron.jpg|Sorry, No Humongus Bridges - What's the point of Flying Shit Otherwise?? Realstore1910.jpg|Real Stores are filled with products. Space is expensive. 1900FinksReal2.jpg|Fink's Factory should have looked like this. NoLevine.jpg|There is a problem with 'Just Making Shit Up', when you aren't very good at it. --- --- --- Infinite BS - Meddling In Other Universes ... : The Luteces seem to keep getting more Bookers when the last ones failed (like ~150 times -- I assume that's what the talley board indicates). Doing that causing disruption to whatever reality THAT/THOSE Booker(s) was/were taken from seems not to matter. A Booker who now is to fix all the 'poor little' Elizabeths in THOSE other realities (or everything else they would have done in their potential lives) -- when the Luteces bring him 'here' to die (again)? Infinite Universes - Borrowed Bookers : Nobody is going to save the infinite other Elizabeths trapped in the Tower (or in a cellar, or insane asylum, or convent, or whorehouse, or laundromat, or giant crystal skull, or WHATEVER) WHICH have already happened/will happen/will always happen ... BTW, For every dimension which this 'god' Elizabeth steps into, there are infinitely more she NEVER will get to (to fool herself she is 'fixing'). Every dimension she steps out of then still goes on its own path/course (without her meddling which, who knows, might be far better when they play out un-meddled with). --- --- --- Gauges (to be useful) have to be where you can READ them. They also are placed on 'control panels' where you can get to/within the workings/connections-to-them for maintenance (them showing some embedded ON a wall is kinda moronic/shows no understanding at all). Here its a bizarre eclectic set of gauges, which about a tenth that number would be more than adequate for any 'controls' (and please a bit more systematic in layout). (Note- such gauges were not REMOTELY located from their machinery - NOT until many decades later - and no, sorry, Fink didn't just steal the idea ...) - This is just more 'wall covering' Dress-up that some level designer created without much thought ... --- --- --- This view reminds me of older game settings when the rendering resources were few and things had to be simplified - objects were largely crude caricatures. We have garish colors that no actual working machine would have (and a working machine should have been starkly offset in color to differentiate it 'artistically' from the DECORATED 'pretty' parts of Columbia). Everything with the same 'shiny' decor makes the whole place mundane and bizarre. Its basic art technique. Mechanisms that really are only half there. And just wrong fro their function. But then its something a game 'artist' made that is supposed to look like something, but the 'artist' is NOT actually familiar with what REAL things look like. It even still has 'balloons'. The 'Playskool' look ... --- --- --- Leaving pieces floating about independently was a great formula for disaster. Imagine that here some 'Vox' seized that floating block, and now are going to use it as a Battering Ram to take apart Comstock's little Eden. Whole sections of Columbia plummeting to the ground would have been a good (ignored) apocalyptic scene. LOOOK OUT !!!! THEY'RE COMING AROUND AGAIN !!!!!! Is that a store on that 'Block' ??? All the goods inside falling about and furniture/boxes/People sliding back and forth as the thing 'banks' in its maneuvering ... Yes, such a wondrous pretty idea - created by careless know-nothing 'artists' -- 'par' for this game. --- --- --- . . . . . . . That Ball Throwing Scene at the Fair : ONLY ONE BALL and two criminals ? WHAAAA ??? You win the Grand Prize if you bounce the baseball off BOTH heads in one throw ?? (No 'fun' targets that if you hit a bulls eye : "Crush Them" ... "Drown Them" ... "Burn Them" .... "Hang Them" - which takes effect immediately (Emulating those 'Dunk the guy in the water booths at so many county fairs ...) SO, What is the Player to do? They aren't even given the option of WHICH of the two lawbreakers to throw their 'punishment' ball at. No doubt there would be additional number drawings (or maybe after the 'First Pitch' EVERYONE got to throw their ball -- What a scene THAT would have made !!! And what happens AFTER the ball hits, and the criminal is hanging limp - the master of ceremonies uses his revolver to administer a Coup De Grace execution? Or are two nooses then brought out and a nice quantumz-floating scaffold ready to administer the sentence appears ??? As Players, Don't we have the right to know what all this staged scene REALLY was ???? (Instead of some dim caricature Racist Passion Play - Ken&Co ladling their PC BS on thick ...) --- --- --- The Lady Comstock's Handprint - Oh Yes ?! ' : ?? "Lady" (as uses here) is some kind of aristocratic term -- how very American .... ' *NOT* '. (Maybe if the games scenario was set in Edwardian England -- and the Luteces now could talk with Brooklyn accents to set them apart). Amazing all these wondrous Stolen (in Time as well as Space) technologies they managed to work into this game's plot. Handprint Recognition Machinery now ... Have to chop the hand off the corpse (Funny scene of the skeletal arm trying to strangle Booker while he does so, or a more amusing scene of him using it as a back-scratcher ... and the inevitable "Can I Give You A Hand" joke. '''Have you yet NOTICED that it would have been actually better to have written this whole hack story as a comedy ??? ') --- --- --- '''That Head (Huge handyman Head when pix shows normal person standing next to it) SO, Supposedly, that (as the story goes) was a normal person put into a 'Handyman' suit ??? Not a rebuilt head by its looks (if they wanted it Big-ified then they coulda wrapped it in metal to enlarge it without enlarging the original person inside). SO, Why IS the head so HUGE ??? (its like 2X each dimension = 8x normal volume) Probably because would look ludicrous if left normal-sized on that body (and be barely visible at the range Players usually see the Handymen - when they are fighting to be able to do 'Headshots'). I might guess that the Handymen were originally to be smaller than that when Infinite BS was produced, AND they (simply) scaled them up to appear more menacing. Maybe it is to make them an easier target -- as the Handyman are such bullet sponges, and quite bothersome when they get in close range to the Player ( NOTE the sniper scope HELPING you get a shot by slowing things down/locking onto the target. It don't work that way in reality.) Not justified as an intended Security operative (there's plenty of other minions of Comstock's Police Stat for that). So a big clumsy worker who does what ?? Giant hands for manhandling huge boxes full of industrial stuff for which there is few customers to warrant the industry ??? A menacing enforcer for the untermenschen serfs/slaves ? The Excuse apparently : To simply to serve as a game opponent, similar to the iconic Big Daddy, just another flavor a bit different from that huge paramilitary army. A MMORPG Spoof might have a even larger Mardi Gras sized head. --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weird Stoning #77 Scene Telegraph 'Cable' : "Telegraph for You Mr False Shepherd" ''' : That object - Its A Cloned real 'Cable' form (Details don't really matter as long as you can slice the heads off NPCs ...) Shouldn't it be "Columbia Time" (instead of 'Standard Time') ?? Looks like something was rather sloppily covered over in Photoshop - just under the Giant Pigeon logo (You can see a few letters to each side they missed). Sloppy Work. '''Cable ? (From where ?) Telegraph ?? This is a 1893 Show City (and now almost 2 decades after that) which SHOULD have had all *Telephones*, or Gear-driven brain implants by then, with all the Tech the Luteces and Fink supposedly stole. Steam Punk-Goggled Borg Implant Top Hats for EVERYONE !!! This Telegram should have been delivered by balloon-suspended Telegram Delivery Drone ?? (A way to later be employed for some ally to send goodies to Booker throughout the story - though you can ALWAYS have the magical Luteces just appear out of nowhere to hand him stuff - its just REAL QUANTUM PHYSICS you Know !!!). Telegram implies Telegram from someone/someplace (else) and 'telegraph' wires run from someplace to someplace else (office with operators and the messenger guys )? I see no wires in Columbia. Actually stringing wires between the independently floaty bits of the 'city' seems problematic. Ditto with flying things running into them (or Booker/Elizabeth falling, hitting one and being cut in two.) - It has come to mind : "Standard Time" ? - Time in Columbia might be rather weird when the 'city' allegedly moves about near the USA (3 - 4 hours difference depending on where it is floating). People's Circadian Rhythms can get really out of whack from time changes like this (and make the inhabitants really mental). Hmm, that might be one possible explanation for it all ... - Minor Note On Ignorance - REAL Telegrams didn't have both Upper/Lower case letters (Sorry Levine&Co - its another FAILZ when you DON'T do proper research). --- --- --- Faux-Science Absurdities : "Quantumz For All Of Us" (A book published in Rapture ?) All Entanglement is local (real Quantum Physics - Oops even the 'theory' goes against the Infinite BS game Bullshit) A game about Time Travel (Oops, again not actually Quantum Mechanics in any way ... my bad) Faux-Science pretty much as flawed as is the game's take on Religion/Society/Economics/History. "Its a game ..." What does it matter if the combat is good, OOPS ... (Pop-A-Mole combat, spiced up with 'Execution' moves ... 9/10 !!!!) "Quantum Computers" (another buzzword to abuse - thank goodness they didn't have it in Infinite BS) I do wonder if that BioShock 1's Vita-Chamber 'Entanglement' BS led to all this crap. --- --- --- Booker And Comstock Existing In The Same Dimension ??? : BTW, remember all this 'Merge' stuff they have elsewhere in the game - How does it happen that there are two of the same people in the same universe/dimension (similar to it being problematical with the two Luteces). (( '' More of "The Cuz Factor" of poor flawed story telling ... '' )) --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . Prophesy ... Kinda Hard in a Multi-verse Where you Jump Between Dimensions : “The Seed of the Prophet shall sit the throne and drown in flame the mountains of man”. Looking into dimensions that are all different ?? That doesn't make sense for 'Prophesies'. So he had dimensional 'god' powers too (?) to pick between the other side of all Those 'Tears' he supposedly looked through ?? More like : Comstock would be disgusted looking at OUR times, or be scared shitless by the nasty things he saw (plagues/slimy-aliens/Carrot-top/Anime-cartoons/etc ...). New York City in flames ?? Yeah, except even in the late 1950s the USA could destroy all of Columbia' with a single Air-To-Air nuclear tipped missile (which we had on lots of supersonic jets deployed by our national air defenses all around the USA). SO How much of this stuff is just Comstock's own delusions ??? And Old Elizabeth is just as delusional/insane (she's shown later in the game in some alternate dimension - trying to attack a city in the US). Its also ignoring the Rest of the World moving on. (( '' Maybe this insanity is the result of constant exposure of Columbia's population to those mind-bending 'Tears' ??? '' )) Now if you are going to warp all of subsequent history (via a "Mothra-sized Butterfly Effect") THEN it is ' ***NOT*** ' our world (those burning NYC cityscape or French Paris Theater Showing 'Return of the Jedi', or anything else recognizable). Rather it might then be the Conquering Nazis who are shooting down Columbia with nuclear-tipped missiles (shit like that happens when you start thinking you can sloppily changing history to suit your plot ...) --- --- --- Expecting Logic ? - Dont Play Infinite BS : Vigors (Plasmids) in Columbia ?? Howzat??? (A players strong disparagement ...) Supposedly Fink got the idea for drinkable Vigors through a Tear. But the ADAM used to produce them requires him to do deep sea expeditions so he can get the ADAM Sea Slugs. To do this he has to fly all the way (from wherever Colombia is floating around) alllllllll the way to the Atlantic Ocean up near Greenland, THEN he has to hop in some sub or a diving bell or whatever, to get to the sea floor, and pick those suckers up individually by hand (presumably get some workers to dothis). Then they must return to the ocean surface, fly alllllllll the way back to wherever Colombia has drifted off to and then needs to extract the ADAM from the Sea Slugs. And even then the yield is meh since the Slugs alone, outside of a Little Sister, produces very little. Making it 'genetic' which is the far more complex/difficult part of the Plasmid production is NOT really explained (other than 'seeing Suchong' through a Tear). It's one of the goofiest bits of lore to come out the entire series, and seems more just an excuse to be able to have magic potion powers and to call the game 'BioShock'. --- --- --- A Samurai ? THAT was the best they (in Infinite BS) could think of ? : A whole herd of cows appearing and milling around and then stampeding towards Booker's enemies might have been much more interesting, and a Harley Davidson motorcycle that Booker could ride and run down opponents with ... Lets see ... using some IMAGINATION : * Steam Roller... (a slow but unstoppable 'getaway vehicle') * Trained Pterodactyl (Velociraptor would be too passe) * Sherman Tank * Robot (generic with no copyright problems) * A sinkhole leading to Hell, for Opponents to fall into * 4 Dogs sitting around a Table playing Poker * A dead Roman Gladiator * A Macy's Thanksgiving Day Balloon Float of Underdog * A Gestapo officer asking for 'papers' * A 20 foot tall pillar of uncanned Tuna Fish and 1000 Hungry Cats running towards it * Andrew Ryan putting into Fontaine's Skull * 3 Nihilistic German Motorcycle Creeps demanding money * 50000 Toy Marbles spilling onto the ground * A Three Headed Giant (Jefferson&Washington&Franklin) insurance salesman * A Gangster with a Thompson MG - doing a bad Bogart/Cagney/E.G.Robinson imitation * Sir Elton John riding a Hippo ... All of ^^^ THESE ^^^ make as much sense (or maybe more). - Why not that Sherman Tank Instead?? : Samurai ... Was this some 'rigged' model one of the developers had previous done their own work on, and it was handy just to incorporate into the game ?? Only The Shadow Knows ... A short calibre 75mm HE cannon shell hitting a Handyman would have been something to see ... And there would be NO pathetic 'drowning in a birdbath' for Comstock either !!! --- --- --- . . . . . . And how exactly did Lutece(s) determine this ??? Hmm, human experimentation ?? Kidnapping children to test 'the Quantumz' effects, and then dissect their brains ?? (*THIS* An H. H. Holmes type substory for the game that really woulda been a great improvement ????Chicago Mass Murderer at time of the 1893 Exosition). How many years were they to carrying out this 'scientific' Abomination before the Luteces met Comstock (and got his religio-bunk-swindled CASH) ??? HMMM. So Comstock was likewise effected (that 'Tear' to get Lizzie ...)?? He was right there with Booker, so WHY no quantum meltdown in THAT situation ???? (Or between the two Luteces themselves, them being the same person, in one place, with no proper 'Merging' happening). ' "They spew alot of ideas in this game, but they really don't seem to fit together." - Milton Bradley ' --- --- --- --- --- ' I CALL IT "INFINITE BS", 'HATE' IS THE WRONG WORD - THINK MORE 'SAD DERISION' ' ( For what we MIGHT instead have had ) --- --- --- 1900 America - Sorry Ken, Your Faked American Times WOULD HAVE Moved Forward : ''' I was watching the recent PBS documentary about the Roosevelts (Teddy in particular) and how much America change during that period. It struck me that much of the Hype this (Infinite BS) game had in its Trailers and endless Interviews supposedly reflecting the 'Social Ills' of the 1900's (which the game eventually largely discarded/diminished, or turned into a caricature in favor of all the Quantum BS and the obvious attempt to belittle/smear Christianity), was itself a big pointless distortion - BECAUSE Columbia was shown locked into some earlier period of when Columbia was launched (1893 - almost 20 years before). Columbia (what little of it reflected anything real) was frozen (being Hyper Reactionary even for that time), while America in that era significantly changed and moved forward. The game's dystopia setting missed alot of the social reforms that did happen in America. Major reforms were happening which Columbia was not a part of (so further becoming an Anachronism). That largely made irrelevant all the writers attempts at FingerPointing Something derisively called 'Virtue Signalling' these days. about America's alleged "evils" . I've seen various people defend the game's exaggeration of American society (ie- the '''Farce theocracy they created which has absolutely nothing to do with any American religion), thinking it was serving 'to make a Point' - to be an illustrative device. But Kenny&Co, a 'Strawman'https://www.conservapedia.com/Straw_man_fallacy is still a LIE, and the validity of your point is lost in its dishonesty. The game situation was warped out of any semblance to what America's problems/ills/ were 'talked-up' to represent by the writers. Rapture had some similar aspects, except that those gamemakers DID state that Rapture was intentionally founded as Libertarian/Objectivist (and voluntarily had its occupants escaping from a growing Socialism-tainted World). Rapture had its society built around backing away from the Wilsonian/New Deal/post-WW2 American society. (That versus Columbia with its kidnapped/trapped Lower Class of servitors, forcibly serving its rulers, but conveniently and illogically unable to escape.) --- --- --- ' "Will the Circle be Unbroken" ? Circle Stain of Story Shit ? ' : Elizabeth breaks into song (yes, strumming a guitar) ... When exactly did she learn THAT, 'locked in a tower' - Isolated from some early age (if you go by the 'Chalkboards' ??) Book Learnin' just about Everything she knew ? Her 'Minders', they just chucked stuff into her prison, and she had little else to do ? Churchy hymm/song, but when did she ever go to Church (something other than Comstock's bizarre cult crap)?? Is that another thing she learned from 'books' ?? ALL VERY Very suspicious (another one of those scenes they first 'decided on' (Storyboarded), and then had to 'cobble' a story around). How much human contact did Elizabeth ever have ? That is never quite explained (and the obverse is :That creepy 'secret spying on her' during her confinement, shown in the game). Her social development would be severely retarded. A bird-brained Songbird isn't exactly going to impart much humanity/human contact. - Heh. Creepy(er) if she played/sang it as a 'Rap' version "Circle Be Un" (Alternate Alternates - Fink found that 'Rap' style of music a VERY popular seller, so we heard it all over in that Columbia.) Levine&Co missed out here. But then that would make the song all but unrecognizable - BUT THEN the science/history/religion/america - in that game, it was all but unrecognizable ALREADY. - Elizabeth 'Wanted to Go to Paris' ? What exactly was stopping her ? So much of this aspect of the game was just touchy-feeley rubbish. Oh, she looked through 'Tears' ? Stepped through them? WHY WOULD SHE EVER COME BACK ??? --- --- -- Scenes that 'Look Good' (Storyboarded) : Infinite BS Pre-Canned Falling Scene: After Songbird (the Gimp Suited Giant Parakeet) is ripping up stuff, HE does not seem overly careful where Elizabeth's safety is concerned. (But then, it acts out while being controlled by some little Tootley device - which Fink wishes he had similarly working for his 'Cattle'.) = "Lets run to the top !!!" ... Oops, swept off in the wind -- While on that weird open walkway. = = Falling .. = = Skyline is caught wrenching Booker's arm out of its shoulder socket (taking Elizabeth's weight to boot). = = A Nice Little Skyline excursion through a hazy indistinct cityscape ... smooth sailing. Wheeeeeeeeeee !! = = Hear that Rhythmic incidental sounds (not scene fitted music which might have been better ... costs money after all). = = "Hey! We went around in a circle !!!" = = "Oh Nooos", Bits of the giant statue (Monument Containment Monstrosity) are falling about because Songbird is tearing it apart (even though it appeared to be build like a battleship inside). = = Bridges and things being broken as if they were made out of porcelain (well maybe MOST of Columbia *IS* made of Brick !!). = = Falling again, hundreds of feet, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" ... aaaaaannnd Splashdown! (but not like those people who jump off bridges and hit water surface made hard as cement by the water tension AND who are instantly killed/reduced to a greasy stain). = = *Fade to Black*. = All very Dramatic, but no skill or interaction required of the Player (Hey Kenny, Peter Jackson also made a Movie for about $200 mil and The Hobbit grossed a Billion Dollars (and then he did it twice more ...) --- --- --- Booker Spews His Narrative (Versus the Quiet Player Avatars of the Past) : ' I guess the Players couldn't be allowed to figure things out for themselves, and had to be directly TOLD what they are seeing (Levine&Co's assumption of a modern 'Dumbed-Down' Player base ???) In the previous games, they left a great deal vague. Players who want to think for themselves (and not have it all spewed AT THEM by their own characters mouth) should be able to make up their own minds from what THEY see of some decently presented evidence ). Those Players who just want to get-on-with the Shooting and Slaughtering don't actually care much for the continuous inane prattle ANYWAY. The SO-Wise Booker comments an awful lot, but remember : HE is a drunkard, a wastrel and a murderous thug, whom YOU are now forced to listen to ... "RATHER THAN OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND THEY KNOW YOU ARE A FOOL ..." - Mark Twain --- --- --- '''ALARM !!! ALARM !!! Building Collision Imminent !!! : ' Lotsa small bits of the city (ie- buildings) are seen floating around '''independently - What an opportunity for catastrophe. What magic guides all these huge free-moving lumps ? Consider that Clockwork mechanical 'smart devices' were about the limit for those times. So humans HAD to be involved. Pilot error happens even when you are NOT doing constant tricky 'docking' with tight clearances, and having 'scheduled' route patterns. It is quite easy enough to program (a recorded path) in a Game Engine though - EASY when anything real has disaster and threats to life and limb - for a game maker they aren't risked). These scenes are all 'Canned' visual effects (Sorry after you missed stealing the Blimp you still couldn't (weren't allowed to) fly off in one of those floaty building chunks, even if you wanted to ...). With all that jigging and wobbling and surging about, Barf Bags probably were the most commonly sold Consumer Item in Columbia. Meanwhile, there was NO (Player Controlled or interactive NPC) Flying Belts to use -- Having some stylish Angel Wings for Comstock's shiny 'heaven' would be quite reasonable for the 'White Folk', wouldn't it ??) Sorry, apparently doing so was TOO hard, no matter how interesting a game it might have made for (Flying Multi-Player Battles for the DLC - that might have been good.). --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . Look at ALL the weird-assed things in Columbia, and then REAL things like THIS, SO you KNOW that Columbia was being surpassed by the ordinary world with or without Quantumz. --- --- --- Laid On Thick - The Faux Religion At the Starting 'Tour' Game Segment in Columbia : ' Kinda huge, Medievalish and Pope-ish (all those candles and worshiped icon images), no ? Cultish weirdness (oddly) imagineered through the mind of Ken Levine. Remember THIS was supposed to be 'America' dontcha know ? You keep going in this BS game and it only gets worse. - BTW, what you saw was the "White" peoples entrance. What kind of passage into Columbia do you think the "damned"/unwashed masses of immigrants/blacks/Irish went through ???? Remind us again Ken, WHY THOSE kind of people were even allowed in the Blessed Floating Eden ?? OR Why THEY want to live in a Cultish Tyranny Police State? OR Why these Racists would ALLOW them to Contaminate their Holy Place ??? Failz Much, No ? . . . . . . . . --- --- --- '''City of ''What ??? ' : Columbia - SO it is supposed to be a 'City' with all those oversized buildings, but then is supposed to NOT be the Den Of Iniquity which all Cities are ??? Eden wasn't a city. Businessmen (and Worse Big Businessmen) and no "Passing Through the Eye of The Needle/Heaven" - YES ? Comstock's flying farce WE know is all Charlatanry, AND it would NOT have fooled most good people in that era. These 'White' 'ruling' inhabitants are problematic, really NOT that much like typical Americans (whom the writers, seeking relevancy, claimed 'were like that'). No it is more a Nazi or Southern Slave Owner kind of people who are there (and it is a Shame that Ken Levine apparently thinks of Americans and America's Past That Way). Perhaps small town/village stuff just was not as impressive enough a setting for the game, which required Comstock to create a grand urban ''Sepulchre (white and shiny on the outside, but full of corruption inside). This bizarre situation is a rather awful 'writer' creation to force the 'dystopia' the BioShock games had as their setting (really not very imaginative because villages can be made just as frightening - with hidden evil as much as ANY city). The game creators did not even do the evil 'city' properly. Example : "Shantytown" should have been where Founders went for a little 'flavor' (Columbia is run with that Ante Bellum Plantation mentality, where the 'massah' visits the slave cabins for entertainment when he feels like it, No ?) The city's Untermenschen being reduced to barbarity and depravity (and kept 'in line' by the Police State) just to survive while hidden under the streets - THAT would have been much more horrifying, and could have made the whole Founder-created story situation that much more evil. As someone said : ' "A Feeble, Milque-toast Representation of Such Things" ' --- --- --- '''Hmmm, Spiritualism Evidenced in Columbia : All the rage in those times (post American Civil War) - for those people possibly being contrary to Comstock's Cultism (Columbia ain't Christian anyway so what's a bit more hypocrisy ???) The serf class of course would hide such things, but keep them as a way to at least feel like they had a little power for themselves. Haunted Mansions, Madam X Mediums, and Crystal Ballz & Seances - after all, Columbia is built like a demented theme park, ain't it ... (( '' BTW, WTF does fricken ghosts like Lady Comstock have to do with 'quantumz' ?????????????????????????? '' )) 'Contacting the other side' ... Oh look, alternate universes (What that all has to do with Quantumz is rather dubious -- more just 'Cuz' storytelling that makes little sense in the games primary setting.) Commentators on the game (online) have mentioned how DISJOINT the delivered Infinite BS game appears - As if it was all 'shoved together quickly' and missing the cohesiveness of something put together with more skill/effort. --- --- --- Commenter : I Dont Hate Bioshock Infinite, How Can One Hate A Retarded Child ? --- --- --- --- --- Anybody See Any Problem With The Original Infinite BS Game Timeline ??? ''' : Lets look at the BOOKER/COMSTOCK TIMELINE in a realistic context : 1874 * '''April 19: Booker DeWitt is born (evidenced by his Pinkerton credentials). 1890 * December 29: Booker DeWitt (age now only a little over '''16' ) is in the US Army, and is present at (and takes part in) the Wounded Knee Massacre. He is given the nickname "The White Injun" by members of his regiment, due to his barbaric (scalping) atrocities against the Native Americans. (( '' BTW, it was '''VERY' unlikely for someone so young to be a soldier, with that times limited military budgets, and with NUMEROUS qualified/mature veterans being available and seeking employment.'' So much for 'historic accuracy ... )) Note - Booker is already brutal before that Baptism 'split' thing even happens. 1891 - 1892 * Booker DeWitt (age 17/18), is remorseful for his cruel/evil/reprehensible actions at Wounded Knee, attends a Baptism ceremony presided over by Preacher Witting. **(( '' Hmm, about a year before Columbia is built ? My my, things moved so quickly back then !!! )) ** In one timeline, Booker #1 rejects his Baptism at the last moment (( '' Supposedly Quantumly causing the 'good' Booker (#1) -- Who actually is not good at all '' )). ** In another timeline/universe/whatever, Booker DeWitt #2 accepts Baptism and is born again, and subsequentlky takes on the name of Zachary Hale Comstock (( '' Who now, instead of finding 'Redemption', seems to become even more evil because of this "'Finding Religion'" --- ??? When YOU actually examine Kennyboi's story about Booker, the '''unbaptized' Booker's life is actually just as Evil as Comstock's is. Sorry Kenny, your attempted 'dig' at religion is a *FAILZ* )). 1892 * '''January 22:' Booker DeWitt #1 (now 18) is employed by the Pinkerton's National Detective Agency and proves to be an accomplished company thug. 1892 - 1893 * Comstock (Booker #2) now a 'Holy Roller' (Evangelist ?), meets 'scientist' Rosalind Lutece who has something interesting to show him (the 'Tear' stuff). He jumps at the opportunity and goes into the 'Prophet business. Eventually, he is burnt by all those 'Tears' he is exposed to, and amazingly ages rapidly, acquiring an impressive Moses like appearance (Instead of becoming a radioactive Tumor-covered Human-hemorrhoid monstrosity shunned by normal people - WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE A GREAT GAME REVELATION ). * Booker (#1) DeWitt's daughter, Elizabeth/Anna, is born. Her mother, Annabelle DeWitt conveniently dies in childbirth. (Its not mentioned if they were married at the time). * Comstock dreams of building a Floating Eden AND getting the US Government to pay for it (a Fontaine-like BIG CON). He set out to do so. 1893 * Jan 3: Comstock(Booker #2) tries to play off his 'Congressional Medal of Honor' to influence Congress, but half of them have far more medals than he has (CMH was handed out like candy as a political ploy around that time). Republican Newspapers identify Comstock as one of the "Heineous Indian Slayers". * Jan 5: Comstock amazingly quickly, and impossibly, successfully lobbies the U.S. Congress to provide funding for the construction of this Floaty Columbia (allegedly to be a marvelous floating city). It is quite interesting that Congress wasn't even in session til March 4, 1893. ** Comstock intends to eventually steal Columbia one day to make his modern-day weird cult's Ark, and make it a New South/Confederacy (with him as Beloved Leader). ** How exactly to get 'Congress to fund' ? Jedi Mind Control Tricks ?? Note - Comstock has to convince multiple influential career politicians (SERIOUSLY WRITERS, DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW THIS WORKS ???) ** This is despite a looming National Depression(the signs were already visible), and with (at that time) only tiny available Federal Tax Monies. (But a truly Fantastic Miracle happens to make Career Politicians find so much money to pay for it - maybe MORE plausible for Comstock to steal all the money (via Tears) from other dimensions banks ??). ** 'Floating' outside the laboratory first would have to be demonstrated before Dollar One of Tax Money is Spent. (Comstock could skim money from his Prophetic 'church' donations to possibly pay for that, and some bribes.) * "Columbia" is designed by "Quantum" experts Rosalind and Robert Lutece, after they somehow got funded by the U.S. Government and Taxpayers (This is Fantasy after all ...), and is subjected to the usual mess of contractors, corruption, labor agitation, graft and favoritism (Unfortunately 'Quantumz' cannot make THESE magically disappear). All this complicated new technology work gets magically done in a very short time in a world where Flush Toilets only just got developed. * Convict labor somehow is obtained to do this building (The Labor Unions won't like that). Unfortunately, chain-gangs are incapable of doing skilled/complex labor, and destroy more than they build. Even as mere "beasts of burden", they are almost useless. Neither Fink nor Lutece nor Comstock have much understanding about doing actual large construction projects. Project delays mount. The project is taken away from the incompetent Comstock, and reputable builders are contracted to finish it in time to attend the 1893 Columbian Exposition. * May 1 - October 30 The 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair occurs, expounding the concept of American exceptionalism (and amazing things are to be seen by all who attend - The WHITE CITY amazed crowds). * Aug 5'''One of the star attraction of the Exposition (eventually) is the floating "city" of Columbia, envisioned by the self-proclaimed prophet Zachary Hale Comstock. (*OR* in Universe Alternate Dimension #1 (Booker's), it is not there at all). * '''Nov 1 After ( Timeline #2) Columbia attended the 1893 Columbian Exposition, it starts a global tour of major cities under the auspices of the US Government, AND has various adventures and mishaps. * October 8 The drunkard Booker (#1) DeWitt sells his infant daughter to pay off his gambling debts, and fails to save her after changing his mind (a struggle resulting in a minor maiming of the child). (( '' or Doesnt -- This is a Quantumized Universe, Remember ? '' )) ** Alternately, After Comstock (Booker #2) buys Elizabeth/Anna from Booker #1, Lady Comstock (back in Columbia and who isn't her mother), knows something funny is happening (baby arrives via a 'Tear' with a pinky ripped off). She suspects the Child is Comstock's bastard by their ex-convict servant girl, or maybe that strange Lutece woman. Lady Comstock, who is going to raise a ruckus, is murdered by Comstock (or Isn't ?), which he claims was done by "the 'sub-human' ex-convict servant" (Yeah, THAT was REALLY smart to have such a person IN their house) . --- This Timeline is rather crammed together, isn't it ?? Kinda a bit tight time-wise for the sequence of ALL THOSE Events alleged to have happened, no ?? Consider 1893 Booker supposedly conning the US Legislature is barely 19 (mental/experience) years old ??? Did anybody (writers) seriously consider what's involved there ?? (He'd barely started his career as a Holy Roller by that point). Life Experience ... Oh Yes, He was like an Old Man by then. Riiiiight.... Oh, HE also appears OLD now ? Yeah that'll make up for it. So that didn't raise eyebrows (like who is this guy/freak - Army records are public and some reporter WOULD investigate ...) ? He would also have to be 'Known' for his magical prophesies to make him famous- the Religion Scam must all happen first ...) before any politically-important religious influence (for that Congress related funding). BTW, How fast did he build up his fame there doing that ??? THAT takes time too, whatever it was to get so many people to follow him (the ONLY reason ANY politician would have ANY dealings with him). Comstock got a reputation for 'Prophesying' -- by looking at the 'future' in Universes which AREN'T THIS ONE ?? (parallel universes ARE different AND HE HAS TO LOOK INTO THE FUTURE through Tears ). BTW, isn't the story that he is a bigwig PREACHER at age 17 18 ????) BEFORE he even meets Lutece ???? WHEN he THEN needs to use Tears to see into the future to do his famous prophesying to get his BIG reputation???? (AND use them enough to get OLD LOOKING !! another thing that seems to happen OVERNIGHT). Sorry, you sad-sad writers of this trash, that logic is "Shit Poor Spew™". Bad contrived History, with no understanding of the concept of Time, as well as really bad science, and continual problems getting your reasoning conclusions straight. So : Funding (using Taxpayer money) happens for a project proposed by some cultist charlatan ?? AND *Real World* Politicians are involved (Congress ...) ??? Gimme a break. Oh, so the technology worked (before funding was forthcoming?) ?? Proving THAT would have been REQUIRED (more time you don't allow being eaten up there, Kenny). Come back NEXT year Mr Comstock, when appropriations are being discussed again in the next Session of Congress. (BTW, This also would result in the US Government now having in ITS possession every bit of that Technology - contracts and all going through Government Channels, and personnel and such). But, But, But ... No, it is all Grade-A rubbish. You'd think they could come up with something simpler for a setting for what's merely a mediocre Shooter game. Faulty Unreasonable Timelines ARE something easily pointed-out. The game writers seriously needed to hire someone to explain American History to them. Contriving linked "real" events to create a faulty social commentary might have fooled some dim (or simply bought) Game Reviewers into giving their "Ooohs" and "Aaaahhs" (('' ... there is a rather low bar for achievement that these days '' )). But that artificial acclaim still doesn't change what rubbish this over-touted "Story" game feature is -- Its not story, its incoherent shit which you just crammed together to force a game context. (( '' Vague details might have served, instead of overtly cobbling together so many disjoint historic events just to 'fit' the desired characters, motives and setting'' )). --- --- --- Inefficient Cult Compound Transendance : How long a line was there for the Lighthouse Rocket (Magic Eden Ride with those long line waits like at Disneyland ) to get everyone to Columbia ??? (And that security - how many homeless people went for a ride to Columbia ??) And how effective were the Body Cavity Searches in preventing various [Gomorrah-Contraband] from getting into "the New Eden" ??? (Remember that Booker went unconscious when he was 'baptised' to 'Enter' ...) Wouldn't a "The Rapture" beam of light -- pulling them all up to paradise -- have been ALOT more efficient (and logical and possibly MORE impressive glitzy game effect (kinda like the 2001 Space Odyssesy lightshow 'trip') ??? With all the other miraculous quantumz stuff, WHY THE HELL NOT ??? It would be just as valid 'ideas', which would look 'good enuf' on those Denny's Napkins at the design meetings (once they drank the Fantasyland Kool-aid). --- --- --- Columbia's Higgledy-Piggledee-Deranged-Cityscape : One of the problems of Infinite BS's Columbia was that it looked like a bunch of buildings just slapped onto weird platforms, without much of a look making it fit being 'up in the sky'/flying. Rapture at least made it plain how things had to fit into the infrastructure required when 'under the sea'. It was all jumbled together, with all kinds of odd height offsets, making inhabitants endlessly walk up stairs, and fouling any ground transportation. There really was no overall cohesive plan/vision to the 'city' (seemed more something for which they shook a box full of parts and then dumped it out, and then glue it together). They should have LOOKED alot closer at the layout of the REAL Columbian Exposition. The FloatyShit™ should have allowed a bigger city mass with more 'inside' open flat areas (instead of virtually everything being 'on an edge'). That would unfortunately require larger game 'levels'. And then Players would want to go to places they saw easily and could reach, versus a linearly traversed maze with a few 'wide' spots. It is so much cheaper to make a bunch of distant half-detailed blocks of more glommed together building shells/facades, half hidden by clouds and haze. It was no game advancement in level size. That's what killed the 'big city' skyline system they showed in the early trailers, and then abandoned after they figured out they really couldn't make it work (or worse, already knew at that time it wasn't to be in the game). --- --- --- Pathetic 'Gear' ? ''' : Pix of Protecto Gear Nah too logical. Not quantumy enuf... Ones for different parts of body - mask/head legs torso, boots ... make sense Another version might have springs for melee attack strikes (take time to wind up/reset 'out of battle') legs-jumps (have to choose best time to use it ...) Sound of winding ... Some bit might be armor metal (an upgrade) which at least protects you some from shrapnel and melee weapons. Some overclothing that protects against fire or cold (reason to switch them - but not practical while IN battle/fighting.) Belts/Bandolero with ammo packs (larger ammo max to be carried) or for quick weapon switch (holsters) I guess in Infinite BS, with its simplified combat mechanics, there just weren't enough variations on 'powers' these things could function (ie- the "Hat" the makes you get more Cash from the vending machines ... or some "Pants" that make you shoot more accurately, etc ... ) That's the problem with slavishly trying to replicate a previous set of game mechanics into a Different context which doesn't quite fit, and has been significantly downsized/simplified. Too many things the same, fewer specialized uses allowed/needed, less customizing for a play style. Not just dumbed down, but eliminating game replay to 'try new things' ..... Rather Stupid for a game maker actually. --- --- --- '''Advertising of Guns in Columbia ? (ie- 'Ralstons Reciprocating Repeater' ) : This is NOT America, not even a poor reflection of America. It is a tightly controlled theocracy Police State masquerading as a New Eden. The police and paramilitary would have the weapons, but the citizens need not bother (and would be dissuaded, lest the weapons be easily available to dissidents/criminals/the insane, or the people rise up once they got sick of the tyranny), and ABSOLUTELY none should be made accessible to the Untermenschen (serf class). Any and All weapon manufacture would CERTAINLY be tightly controlled and restricted. No foreigner would be trusted in such a role. The Infinite BS Game's story environment contradicts itself from every angle. For writers who claim to have done their research, they seem to just grab details and really didn't care to understand how real and theoretical societies should work. A non-white trusted to manufacture guns ? So they (writers) aren't even consistent with the 'racist' logic they try to make a point with. --- --- --- --- --- . .